Three and Out (59 page)

“I said turnovers will cost the game, and it sure did,” Red Stolberg said, pointing his scissors for emphasis. “They say it's just not Greg Robinson's defense. It's Rich Rod's, the three-man front and all that. And Obi can't tackle. Guy runs right up the middle, right at him, and goes right through him. Well, whose fault is that? Then you've got all those dumb penalties.

“I think some of the guys are getting kind of iffy. A bit demoralized. And I know some of the fans are! If they lose Saturday, it's just gonna blow up the balloon, same as last year. Iowa's gonna be tough. If we're lucky, we'll beat Purdue. Couple weeks ago, those were gimmes. If he gets six games and a lousy bowl, he's out of here.

“People are fed up with our boy Rich Rod. He's had his chances, and if he doesn't pull a rabbit out of his butt, he's gone.”

*   *   *

“How many games will Michigan lose?”

That was the question posed on Saturday, October 16, 2010, ESPN's College Game Day.

“Coach Rod was right,” said Forcier's new roommate, Teric Jones. “We've got a better record than Iowa, but they get all the respect.”

“I think it's bullshit how they're talking about our program,” said Forcier, whose improved attitude had been praised by Moundros, Banks, and other seniors. Forcier had largely recovered the respect he'd lost in the off-season. He was engaged.

“We lost
one
game against a team that's beaten two ranked teams, and we're playing against an Iowa team that lost to Arizona, and beat Ball State and Eastern Illinois and Iowa State. What the fuck, Iowa State? Who
isn't
going to look good against those guys?”

Would Forcier get a chance to look good himself? He grinned. “My dad isn't stupid. He didn't fly out here to watch me ride the bench. He knows we're playing a team where you can't just run the ball. Denard got his shoulder popped last week. It doesn't take much. Just one good hit. So my dad sees opportunity. I've been killing our defense all week. I'm ready.”

At the stadium, before warm-ups, strength coach Jim Plocki could often be found sitting on a training table with his back against the wall, elbows on knees, staring off, thinking. “This is a critical game,” he said. “This team is too fragile. I can't tell if we're focused. If we lose…” He didn't finish the sentence.

“They're gonna smack us, too. I know we can't afford to lose Molk or Martin.” Plocki didn't bother to add Denard to that list, because it went without saying. “But you never know. If we win this one, we'll be good to go. You just never know.”

About ten minutes before kickoff, the players got up, walked to the front of the room, and took a knee.

“Do you want respect?” Rodriguez asked them.

“Yeah!”

“There ain't a better day to get it than today. Ranked opponent. National TV.

“I know you can do it.

“I believe in you.

“I trust you.

“So let's go out there and give them sixty minutes of Michigan football.”

He
did
believe in them. He just couldn't tell if they still believed in themselves.

*   *   *

Iowa won the coin toss and made the unconventional decision to receive the ball first, another slap in the face for Michigan's defense. But that wasn't how it played out.

On the first play, Kenny Demens, who—after a season-long debate between Rodriguez and Greg Robinson—had finally replaced Obi Ezeh at middle linebacker, stopped Iowa's runner cold after he'd gained just 1 yard. Two plays later, the Hawkeyes were punting.

But after Michigan's third offensive play of the day, the PA announcer said, “The Michigan player receiving attention is David Molk.” The crowd didn't need to be told by Jim Plocki that Molk was one of the players Michigan couldn't afford to lose. They groaned in unison as he was helped off the field.

Denard kept the offense rolling down to Iowa's 8-yard line, where they faced third-and-goal. Would it be Michigan State all over again? Not this time: Robinson, with a better knee and better form, hit Vincent Smith on a slant route for a quick-strike touchdown. 7–0.

It was all Michigan needed to ignite the crowd. Forcier himself had become the team's biggest cheerleader, urging the crowd to crank up the noise every chance he had.

Michigan's defense—which had twice sent the Hawkeyes punting after three downs—trotted back onto the field. But Rodriguez saw something that made him run full speed down the sideline straight to Greg Robinson. The problem? Robinson was sending Obi Ezeh out to replace Kenny Demens. After a brief heated exchange between the two coaches, Ezeh returned to the sideline and Kenny Demens took his place.

When people asked about Michigan's defense, they wondered if the shockingly poor performance was the result of inheriting weak talent, transfers, injuries, youth, or coaching. The answer was yes. It is impossible to field a defense that finished 68th out of 120 teams in 2008, 82nd in 2009, and 110th in 2010 without all those factors playing a part. If the team had to deal with only two of those issues, say, they'd probably rank somewhere in the middle—and Michigan would be a Big Ten title contender.

Of all those variables, coaching was the hardest to tease out. After Rodriguez and Scott Shafer decided they weren't a good match, Shafer went to Syracuse, where his defense finished seventh nationally in yards per game in 2010. Rodriguez hired Robinson, whom, like Shafer, he barely knew personally or professionally and had just been fired from his only head coaching position after finishing 10–37 at Syracuse.

But Rodriguez was not hiring Robinson to be the head coach. Robinson's run as a defensive coordinator included two Super Bowl rings with the Denver Broncos in 1997 and 1998, plus a national title with the Texas Longhorns in 2004. Some pundits debate how much influence Robinson had on those teams and suggest Rodriguez should have asked more questions, but New England Patriots' owner Robert Kraft, for one, was impressed. He told me he had dinner with Robinson in 2002 with the intent of hiring him, but Robinson chose to work for his old friend Dick Vermeil in Kansas City instead. In fact, if Robinson coached one more season in the NFL, he would have the fifteen necessary to earn an NFL pension—no small bonus.

Rodriguez and Robinson clearly respected each other. Robinson was popular with the assistants, and he fostered a fierce loyalty among the student managers who worked with him. But, as with Shafer, Rodriguez and Robinson were not a match made in heaven. If it was the defensive coordinator's responsibility to teach proper tackling, that was on Robinson, even with the decimated roster. Teaching the talented, experienced Broncos and Longhorns the finer points perhaps required different skills than instilling the fundamentals into Michigan's callow underclassmen. More important, Rodriguez favored the 3-3-5 defense that Jeff Casteel had used to great effect at West Virginia, while Robinson preferred the more common 4-3-4. As the vision for Michigan's defense passed from Rodriguez to Robinson to the position coaches to the players, something was getting lost in translation.

It is difficult even now to determine exactly where the responsibility for Michigan's anemic defense should fall, but the easiest problem to identify was the differences in their judgment of personnel. Robinson was more patient with certain players, including Michael Williams in 2009 and Obi Ezeh in 2010. Rodriguez restrained himself about such decisions—resisting but not overruling—until he reached his breaking point.

Because, ultimately, there was one simple answer as to where responsibility fell: the head coach, something he said outright in the first minutes of the staff retreat in July. It was his job to bring the coordinator he wanted, line up another one he knew well, or not come to Michigan at all. He would never take such chances with his strength and conditioning program, but he did with his defense. It might not be fair, but it's the reality all head coaches live with—and he was paying for it now.

The difference between Ezeh and Demens didn't help much this time, however, when Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi led his team on a 70-yard drive down to Michigan's 14-yard line.

On second-and-10, Stanzi dropped back, rolled right, and threw to the right corner of the end zone. His pass was off: too shallow and too far to the right. Michigan safety Jordan Kovacs read it perfectly and sprang forward to the ball, which was chest-high. It looked as though all Kovacs had to do was make a simple catch and start running down the right sideline. Although Kovacs was no sprinter, he was still a safety, not a lineman, and it was hard to imagine anyone catching him with a 10-yard head start.

The crowd had already jumped to its feet in anticipation, ready to cheer him wildly as he pumped his way right past Michigan's bench to the end zone, giving Michigan a 14–0 lead before the first quarter ended—and delivering a dagger to the Hawkeyes' heart, just like Toledo had done to Michigan two years earlier in almost the exact same situation.

A 14–0 lead wouldn't guarantee victory, but with the offense looking good, the defense serviceable, and the crowd on fire, few would have bet against that outcome. And with it, of course, would come almost all the prizes they would have received for beating State—including job security for their coach and relief from the relentless pressure everyone worked under.

It was, in other words, Michigan's second straight match point.

It was all right there, soaring directly toward Kovacs's chest. Perhaps Kovacs was thinking all those things, too—they all felt the pressure building week after week—as the ball spiraled right to him with nothing but a hundred yards of green in front of him.

And perhaps that's why the utterly reliable Jordan Kovacs dropped the ball.

The crowd, the players, the coaches, and Kovacs himself all slumped in anguish.

Stanzi took the next snap, then fired over the middle for a 14-yard touchdown pass to tie the game 7–7.

“He should have been gone,” former Michigan player Andy Mignery said on the sideline. “You need a play like that in a game like this. This is the whole season. These guys are used to losing like this, and then the slide starts.”

If two plays can change a game, a season, and maybe a career—well, there were two more candidates.

Of course, it's not fair to pin all that on Kovacs, who had already done far more for Michigan than anyone ever could have asked or expected. And that was the point: These hardworking, honest, team-spirited players kept finding themselves facing extraordinary demands, week after week. And they were beginning to crack.

On Michigan's next possession, Robinson threw an interception, followed by a rare outburst: “Fuck!” he said, walking back to the bench. “FUCK!”

Four plays later, Stanzi threw a strike to go ahead 14–7.

When the half ended, the scoreboard indicated that Michigan had gained 223 yards to Iowa's 192—but trailed 21–7.

In the locker room, Greg Robinson focused on getting senior Adam Patterson ready to replace Mike Martin, who left the game because his knee had not completely recovered since the Spartan chop-block a week earlier. Thus, by halftime, both players Jim Plocki had said Michigan could not afford to lose were lost. The field of hope had narrowed yet again, with Denard Robinson once more at its center.

On Michigan's second possession of the half, Robinson gained 12 quick yards only to be hit hard by Iowa's Tyler Nielsen, leaving him lying on the field. The team could have collapsed right then and there and called it a season, but this was the moment Forcier had been waiting for, and he took full advantage, giving the fans what they wanted, with Denard standing on the bench, urging the crowd to get into the game. Forcier delivered with an 85-yard drive to cut Iowa's lead to 28–14, with 13:10 left.

Crazy? Sure. But the crowd knew it was not impossible. Not with this team and this offense. After another Iowa touchdown, Forcier countered with a bomb to Junior Hemingway. 35–21, with over 10 minutes left.

He had captured the fans' imagination, and they were with him completely. Feeling total confidence, he led another touchdown drive to cut Iowa's lead to 35–28, with a luxurious 6:55 left in the game.

It was a solid minute before any coaches could be heard over the roar, while the players jumped up and down, waving their hands upward to keep the crowd going. Stonum called Hemingway over and punched him in the chest. “Let's motherfuckin' GO!”

“Write this shit down,” Mike Martin hollered over the noise. “We are winning this game! WE ARE WINNING THIS GAME!”

It took three days after Rodriguez's Wednesday speech, and three quarters of football, to conclude without a doubt: Yes, they still believed.

For the second time in a row, however, Michigan hooked the kickoff straight over Michigan's bench—which is what rookie walk-ons can do. As it flew over the heads of the players, each helmet seemed to drop down as if the ball itself had set off a row of dominoes.

It was a surprisingly severe blow to Michigan's shaky momentum. On third-and-8 at midfield, Michigan had a chance to get the ball back with plenty of time to tie the game. Freshman Courtney Avery had the ball carrier lined up in open space—but he missed, allowing the Hawkeyes to kick a game-clinching field goal.

Another Wolverine comeback attempt had fallen short. They were running out of air, running out of gas, running out of hope, running out of time—the very thing this team needed most.

The tunnel was not kind to the Wolverines. When one fan saw Greg Robinson, he yelled, “Your defense sucks!”

Robinson kept his chin up, looked straight ahead, and kept jogging.

Rodriguez kept his own postgame address to the players short. “Today we showed 'em we'll fight,” Rodriguez said. “We showed 'em we're tough! But we didn't show them we're smart. Too many stupid penalties and mental mistakes. And that's on us,” he said, thumbing his chest. “That's our job! So the coaches are committed to fixing it.”